Tag Archives: Fantasy Flight Games

Thursday Thoughts: Eric Lang Tweet

Brandon: It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Thursday Thoughts segment. They were started back when we were Board Game Jungle. Recently a tweet from Eric Lang was shared in one of the board game groups I follow and I was completely perplexed by some of the reactions. I discuss the reactions and my thoughts in the video below…

Follow Eric Lang @eric_lang

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Fury Of Dracula 3rd Edition!

Yes! It’s on! According to Fantasy Flight this will be available later this year. I do wish they had kept the box art closer to what was on the second edition. But, here’s the info from FF themselves:

For the dead travel fast.
–Bram Stoker, Dracula

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Fury of Dracula, a board game of deduction and gothic horror.

Count Dracula has lived Un-Dead for centuries, if not millennia. He drove the Ottomans out of Romania, and became known as Vlad the Impaler for his brutal, bloody method of dispatching his enemies. He witnessed the devastation of the black plague and the innovations of the Industrial Revolution. He has infinite wealth, infinite cunning, and countless bloodthirsty progeny scattered throughout Europe. He is by far the most legendary and most powerful of all vampires. Yet four brave mortals are now determined to find him and permanently destroy him at any cost.

In Fury of Dracula, one player assumes the role of Count Dracula as he stealthily spreads his evil influence throughout Europe. Up to four other players govern the iconic characters of Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, Dr. John Seward, Lord Arthur Godalming, and Mina Harker. By day the hunters travel through Europe, searching for any possible clues about Dracula’s whereabouts. By night, they investigate their present locale and prepare for the upcoming day. And by night, Dracula creates new vampires, lays traps for the hunters, and stealthily moves to a new location. Should any hunters find Dracula, or should the Count find them, they will engage in a brutal fight for their lives.

This edition features all-new art and graphic design that complement the game’s intuitive and highly thematic mechanics. Rounds have been broken into day and night: hunters take actions during both, but Dracula can only act at night. Combat is now more streamlined and decisive. Rumor tokens give Dracula new ways to mislead hunters and extend the reach of his influence. The Count triumphs if he advances his influence track to thirteen; if the hunters can defeat him before that happens, they win the game. You can try chasing down Dracula or eluding the hunters’ grasp for yourself, next week at our Exhibit Hall booth at Gen Con.

The Hunt

“Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?”
–A Romanian peasant woman, Dracula

When the first day of the hunt dawns, the hunters are scattered across Europe with no hint of Dracula’s location and no time to waste. Every day each hunter may take a single action. You may travel by road, rail, or sea, and you must travel only in daylight, never in darkness. If you feel travel would be imprudent, you may reserve a train ticket in advance, trade items with another hunter, or search your present location for clues. If you have become injured in your travels, or even wounded by Dracula’s servants or the Count himself, you may rest. You may also choose to venture out for supplies, but that will cause some unforeseeable event to occur: every time you draw an Item card, you must also draw an event card. That event may be the surprising appearance of a loved one who has come to join the hunt, or you may find that your horses have been possessed with evil .

In the dark of night you have another opportunity to act. Since travel in darkness is too dangerous, you must remain in the populated safety and material comforts of your present city. Seeking supplies by night is more perilous than doing so by day, more likely to cause setbacks or place you and your companions in peril.

Living mortals can act night and day, but vampires may only emerge from their coffins at night. Once the hunters have accomplished what they intended, Dracula awakes. First, he travels by secretly choosing a location card and placing it on his trail. He then draws an encounter card, laying a trap for the hunters in his current location such as an  animal minion . He may sire a bloodthirsty new vampire to serve him. Or he may travel to a city occupied by a hunter, reveal himself to his mortal enemy, and attack.

The Hunters

“We ride to death of someone. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be….”
–Dr. John Seward, Dracula

Dracula is by no means an ordinary vampire, but neither are the four hunters ordinary mortals. Each one has unique abilities which enable the group to undertake and possibly even succeed in their dangerous pursuit of the King of the Un-Dead. Lord Arthur Godalming  contributes to the team his wealth, which allows him to gain extra items, and his privilege, which allows him to travel by rail more easily. Dr. John Seward, being naturally well-prepared for any adventure, may carry more items and events than his companions. As a physician, he can also help them recover from damage when they rest.

From left to right: Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, Dr. John Seward, 
Mrs. Mina Harker, and Lord Arthur Godalming

The famous Dutch professor Dr. Abraham Van Helsing offers his leadership, which lets him trade events with another hunter so that the group can derive the most benefit and least harm from whatever befalls them. The professor’s profound tenacity allows him to withstand Dracula’s venomous bites better than his companions. Finally, the headstrong Mina Harker is no less brave, brilliant, or deadly than her companions. Yet she is still profoundly affected by the bite that Dracula inflicted upon her eight years ago. Now that he is risen again she is weakened by it, but because of it possesses a psychic bond with the Count that she can manipulate to determine where he may be.

Although hunted, Dracula is also eternally a hunter, seeking fresh blood, innocent victims, and his enemies’ deaths. In addition to his rage, pride, fury, and diabolical strength, Dracula possesses power cards that he can play to frustrate his pursuers, feed, or transform into a wolf.  He can also place rumor tokens on his secret hideouts to distract the hunters and expand the growing reach of his nefarious, dark influence.

The Battle for Life and Death

“Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same.”
– Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, Dracula

To truly defeat Dracula you must not only track him down, but also face this terrible fiend in combat, risking your life in order to defeat this agent of living death. Battles comprise up to six quick rounds of playing combat cards, but may conclude sooner if someone escapes or dies. In every round the engaged hunters and Dracula make their moves simultaneously, guessing at what the other may do.

As a hunter you may attempt to strike the Count, dodge his blows, escape from his clutches, or use any weapon in your possession, such as a knife or pistol. Dracula fights with his inhuman strength, his sharp fangs, and his ability to mesmerize human beings, controlling them so that they are less capable of dealing him damage. Should the combat turn against him, Dracula may escape in the form of a bat, or eerie mist, but more often his immortal pride prevents him from abandoning a fight.

Dracula Rises Again

“He can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat—the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to begin our strike to destroy him?”
–Dr. Van Helsing, Dracula

In Fury of Dracula you embark on a terrifying and perilous hunt knowing that your most formidable enemy of all time is hunting you as well. As Mrs. Harker, Dr. Seward, Lord Godalming, or Dr. Van Helsing, you seek to defeat a nearly omnipotent creature with power over the weather, over animals, over humans alive and Un-Dead. As Dracula, you aim to subdue all of Europe beneath the dark yoke of your vampiric tyranny. Either way, more than your life is at stake. The future of the European continent, as well as the future of humanity, depend on your success.

Fury of Dracula will be available in Q4 of 2015. In the meantime, you’ll be able to demo the game in the Fantasy Flight Games booth at Gen Con.

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News Mar. 4, 2015

How Bruno Faidutti(Citadels, Mission: Red Planet) makes games.

Promo kits for International Tabletop Day revealed.

Dice Hate Me Games is merging with Greater Than Games.

Grant Rodiek on tension in games. 

Fantasy Flight Games has announced the release of Razorwings Reinforcement Pack for BattleLore Second Edition.

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News Oct. 26, 2014

Info on Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars Armada and XCOM

Kickstarter stuff I am excited about: Peptide, Operation F.A.U.S.T., Monster Mansion, Goblin’s Breakfast, and of course Cartography

Paizo is hiring

ExtraLife is happening

In case you missed it, I have a youtubes

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Elder Sign

Our house is quiet most nights. After coming home from our daily activities we prepare our evening meal and sit at the table and talk about what happened to each of us during the course of our day. After the children are put to bed my wife and I read for awhile and then retire for the evening ourselves. Lately though, I wait until I hear her breathing change signaling she is asleep and I head back to the drawing room and retrieve the book I had discovered in the attic when I was searching for my father’s old coat. This aged tome is filled with incredible, fanciful tales that surely must be a fiction, yet they feel so real. They haunt my dreams.

A strange museum. It’s many rooms filled with unspeakable horrors. A revolving cast of four academics and adventurers struggling to save the world. The only weapon that can prevent the fall of humanity is a series of sigils collected in the right order using a set of six green dice…

…and sometimes a yellow or red die….or both…in addition to the original six, that is…

Elder Sign

Elder sign is one of my favorite games because it is based on the Cthulhu mythos(one of my favorite things) and it’s cooperative(another of my favorite things). It’s 1926 and curiosities in a museum are threatening to open a portal to another world and let one of eight Old Ones in to our world to destroy it.  You and up to 7(!) other players are investigators who must stop this great evil from getting through by searching the museum for enough “Elder Signs” to keep the portal from opening.

What that means is that on a turn a player must put their investigator token on a card that represents a room in the museum and roll the right combination of symbols on custom dice to unlock the card and get other, special, smaller cards (spells, items, allies) or elder signs! I mentioned it’s cooperative, which means everyone wins or everyone loses, but you can actively help one another. If a roll gives you just one die with the right symbol you may “focus” it and reroll the rest. If two investigators are in the same room then the other player may focus a die as well.

There is a lot here. As far as focusing dice or using the item, spell, or ally cards. Oh! And “mythos cards”! At midnight there is a mythos effect. You discover the effect by turning over the mythos card at midnight. Wait! There’s a clock and it advances three hours at the end of each players turn. And if you have fewer than eight players it’s midnight every 12 hours. There are monsters that clog up the room cards, and other world cards, and doom tokens, and clue tokens, and sanity tokens, and stamina tokens, and a red die and a yellow die you can add with the right cards and, and, and…if your investigator dies you can grab a new one and keep going. Links to rules are here

And I love it. I love the artwork, I love the cooperative play. I love the feel of the dice and the sound they make as they tumble down my dice tower. The feeling you get when you get three rooms in a row and 5 elder signs is incredible. These dice. These custom dice are great. Take a look.

These dice.

They give me much joy. They also give me much despair. This is one of the big drawbacks to Elder Sign for me. Yes, there are clue tokens and other specialty cards that can help combat bad rolls, even a few bad rolls, but sometimes the cards and the dice are after you and there is nothing you can do. Alternatively, and this is quite rare, you may get rolls that are too good and the game is won too easily. I would definitely say a series of bad rolls is more likely, but gratification is lessened in both cases. There have been nights when we have scrapped a game because it was clearly off to a bad start or played again because the first run was dissatisfying.

Set up is a little complicated, but after a few times you get the hang of it and once it’s all set up it is quite easy to play multiple games in a single evening. I have to admit that even with the drawback of potentially having bad rolls or easy rolls, I still love this game. I love that we cheer each other on when we get the right combination of dice and that we all deflate and prop each other up when the dice are trying to kill us. And I love these dice. These dice.

I haven’t played with more than four people, but I can’t say I would like to. That’s a lot of sitting around and waiting.

Thanks to Porkins for the dice tower design.

https://vine.co/v/ObDxxDxUnbr

Elder Sign

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News Oct. 15 2014

Fantasy Flight Games bring Scum And Villainy to the Star Wars X-Wing miniatures game.

In other Fantasy Flight news, they are bringing Battlelore to IOS, Android, and PCs.

AEG has something that I am really excited about. Empire Engine has an amazing look and a great back story. 

There was a Settlers Of Catan tournament the weekend of Oct. 11th. Here is the champion.

This news is old, but apparently there will be a new edition of Carcassonne

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News Oct. 8 2014

I have yet to purchase Eldritch Horror. It is on my list though and Fantasy Flight’s Mountains of Madness Expansion is making me want it even more.

Mountains Of Madness

 

I do, however, have Elder Sign and Fantasy Flight is releasing their second expansion for that. In Gates Of Arkham players will leave the museum and head out into the streets.

Gates Of Arkham

Paizo is doing up to 90% off on selected items for all of October in their Great Golem Sale

I wish I could make it to BoardGameGeekCon. If you are interested you can find the schedule here.

BGG also has the schedule for the live stream of Essen Spiel 2014 here.

 

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